Shorewood Village Board Grapples with Private Lateral Replacement Costs

The Shorewood Village Board, last week, began to more carefully consider the impact of entering into an agreement with the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) to fully fund repairs of private Shorewood residential and commercial sewer laterals, which connect to the village owned mainline sanitary and wastewater removal system.  MMSD has entered into agreements with other municipalities within the sewerage district, whereby MMSD offers “grants” in the form of reimbursements to the municipalities for the lateral repairs. 

The price of an average lateral repair is $7,250 for this year.  In the proposed agreement, Shorewood would repair 40 laterals in Basin 6 at a cost of nearly $305,000 (including engineering costs) and MMSD will reimburse $174,000, or 57% of the cost to the Village of Shorewood.

Repairs to the laterals are necessary due to defective pipes and leaky joints, which allow groundwater to enter the sanitary water removal system through inflow and infiltration.  During periods of heavy rain, inflow & infiltration can inundate the sanitary water removal system and cause back-ups to flood the basements of private property.  The Private Property/Inflow and Infiltration (PP/II) agreement would fully fund the project through tax levies from both entities, this year and next.

The lateral repair program is currently an issue in the areas of Shorewood that have separated sanitary and groundwater removal systems because the sanitary system is not designed to handle inflow & infiltration during excessive rain storms. The separated sewers in Shorewood are primarily west of Oakland and the PP/II agreement under consideration covers only the defective laterals in Basin 6. The remaining laterals will be addressed in future agreements.  The combined sewers in Shorewood are primarily east of Oakland and the comprehensive sewer plan commits future Village Boards to separate those systems later this decade.  At that point, the separation will create an inflow & infiltration problem in the newly separated basins due to the private laterals that are defective in those areas.  Though cost projections for future lateral repairs are impossible to predict, there is little doubt that the cost will increase over time.

At issue in the deliberations, is the extent to which MMSD and Shorewood will bear the entire cost of the lateral repairs in future years.  There are approximately 3000 private laterals in the Village of Shorewood.  Estimates are that approximately 1200 are defective and in need of repair or replacement.  Trustee Thad Nation issued this stern warning at the August 13, Shorewood Village Board meeting; “Make sure that you are not obligating this village to pay for everyone’s sewer laterals”.

MMSD is offering a “grant” program that is funded through the MMSD tax levy, but that funding could very easily become unavailable in future years.  MMSD, of course, offers no future guarantees. Without the MMSD money, the Inflow & infiltration project could easily overwhelm the Shorewood taxpayers with special assessments, additional tax increases, continuing basement floods, and potentially huge legal costs, when considered along with all of the other projected increases in sewer and stormwater user fees and taxes.

At the same August 13 meeting, Trustee Jeff Hanewall made the case that “we have the right to force residents to pay for these repairs”.  I&I repairs could become a liability to individual taxpayers in the future, in the form of an assessment at the time that repairs take place or as a “back-end requirement on the sale of a home” Trustee Hanewall suggested.

The current Shorewood Village Board has a difficult decision to make regarding these private property laterals.  The comprehensive sewer plan, which was unanimously passed by the board last year, included the repair of private laterals.  Initial phases of the plan are underway right now.  If the Village of Shorewood and MMSD cover the entire cost of the private lateral replacements this year and next, will there be a political price to pay if at some point in the future, MMSD and/or the village find it necessary to discontinue paying the entire cost?  Also at issue is the possibility that the Department of Natural Resources may eventually step in and mandate the repairs.

As each phase of the comprehensive plan is initiated it will create a series of vexing questions that current and future Village Boards will need to address.  This lateral funding is only one of many, future decisions that will be impacted by the ability of MMSD and the Village of Shorewood to manage, not only the costs, but the political fallout as well. The one sure thing is that these decisions will continue to impact current and future real estate property taxes and property values in Shorewood for many years to come.

Shorewood residents may request additional information from Shorewood Village Manager, Chris Swartz at manager@villageofshorewood.org, or (414) 847-2700.